Since Then
I found myself among the trees
What time the reapers ceased to reap;
And in the sunflower-blooms the bees
Huddled brown heads and went to sleep,
Rocked by the balsam-breathing breeze.
I saw the red fox leave his lair,
A shaggy shadow, on the knoll;
And tunneling his thoroughfare
Beneath the soil, I watched the mole–
Stealth’s own self could not take more care.
I heard the death-moth tick and stir,
Slow-honeycombing through the bark;
I heard the cricket’s drowsy chirr,
And one lone beetle burr the dark–
The sleeping woodland seemed to purr.
And then the moon rose: and one white
Low bough of blossoms-grown almost
Where, ere you died, ’twas our delight
To meet,-dear heart!-I thought your ghost….
The wood is haunted since that night.
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